


Keep Him Young

by electrictoes



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-02
Updated: 2009-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28935546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrictoes/pseuds/electrictoes
Summary: Ianto Jones doesn't act his age. It's in the way he walks and talks and dresses.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Kudos: 3





	Keep Him Young

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to livejournal

**Title:** Keep Him Young (1/1)  
**Pairings:** Jack, Ianto. Jack/Ianto.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Spoilers:** Set post-S2, but no real spoilers.  
**Disclaimer:** The BBC own Jack, Ianto and Torchwood. Lucky.  
**Summary:** _Ianto Jones doesn't act his age. It's in the way he walks and talks and dresses._  
**Author's Notes:** Unbeta-ed. Posted on the demand of [](https://nipplemuggins.livejournal.com/profile)[**nipplemuggins**](https://nipplemuggins.livejournal.com/) & [](https://tazza-di-jo.livejournal.com/profile)[**tazza_di_jo**](https://tazza-di-jo.livejournal.com/) .

Ianto Jones doesn’t act his age. He’s twenty five, but he doesn’t seem it. It’s in the way he walks and talks and dresses. Most people think that he is far older than he is, they don’t realise that he’s so young because he isn’t in the pub on a Friday night with his friends and then down to the football on a Saturday morning, not like normal twenty five year olds. He’s too restrained, too mature. Most people forget that he’s little more than a boy. Jack forgets, and Jack is one of the privileged few, Jack gets to see Ianto with his defences down. Ianto, young and alive and looking twenty-something and happy about it.

Jack likes to give his team at least two Sundays off a month. A little time to be normal, twenty-first century, humans. To do the things that make them happy like shopping or catching a film or watching the rugby. He goes into the Hub, he checks things over alone. They’re on call, always on call, but he handles things. Some Sundays the universe gives them all a break, some Sundays Jack gets to relax, too.

Some Sundays he takes the afternoon off himself, and he seeks out his archivist, because there’s little else to do with his time and no one else he’d really rather be with. He finds Ianto in the middle of his bed. Not in some seductive pose, but fully clothed in battered old jeans and a t-shirt that actually fits his age. He’s at the wrong end of the bed, his bare feet are pressed against the headboard and there’s a small smile on his face. Jack asks what he’s doing and Ianto says he’s thinking. He is thinking. Ianto has a lot to think about, but today isn’t one of those days and Jack toes off his own shoes and lies down beside him. He touches Ianto’s feet with his own but says nothing. Ianto is still thinking and Jack wonders what it’s about. It won’t be something serious, it’ll be something silly, the daft questions that crawl into your mind when you lie around on a lazy day, things like could I climb the walls of Cardiff Castle with my bare hands or how long can I hold my breath under water?

He’d asked Jack to time that, once, and he had, because it was something daft that Ianto wanted to do, something fun and youthful. So he had sat on the edge of the swimming pool, his feet in the water, holding Ianto’s favoured stopwatch while the young man dived beneath the water. He timed him. 1 minute 52 seconds. And then they’d started again, because Ianto wanted to improve his time and Jack loved seeing him so relaxed. Jack liked pretending his lover never had anything to worry about than beating his own high scores and record times.

Ianto’s best friend from university had visited once. Jack had answered the phone to a drunken Ianto telling him how fond of Jack he was, not that he loved him, but even inebriated Ianto had limits. It was nice to hear his lover’s voice, sounding filthy and heavily accented as he shouted down the phone (“You’re fucking brilliant.”). To hear Ianto laughing at his own puns. (“And your fucking’s brilliant.”). Ianto telling him just what he wanted to do to him. The prospect had been exciting and it had been one of Jack’s favourite phone calls. He had sounded like a student and Jack had liked the idea that the biggest problem Ianto had would be the hangover he’d wake up to.

There had been a day, a week before Christmas, when Ianto had moved about the Hub like a giddy seven year old, humming Christmas tunes as he hung decorations. Jack had watched him from the door of his office. He liked the way Ianto moved about the room, happy and comfortable in his own skin, looking like he had something to be excited about. He’d stopped when he’d realised he’d been seen, and Jack felt guilty for ruining the moment, for stopping Ianto’s untroubled movements and his gleeful Christmas enthusiasm. They had spent Christmas apart, but Jack hoped that his lover was as happy as he had been as he decorated the Hub.

On that Sunday, on Ianto’s bed, he threads their fingers together and smiles. He asks Ianto if he thinks people could walk on jelly. They laugh enjoying being daft together. Jack likes the light in Ianto’s eyes and seeing him spend an afternoon without worrying. They move off the bed not long after, Ianto springing across the room in what he describes as a superhero leap and what Jack thinks looks far more like the flight of a damsel in distress. They drink beer, because it’s Sunday and they have the night off. Ianto catches up with the rugby while Jack draws circles on his skin. They eat takeaway and drink more beer and they stumble across the darkened flat hours later, all hands and lips and skin and Jack wanting to make Ianto feel alive and young forever.

Morning comes and Ianto dresses. Jack watches him adjust his tie in the mirror and he whistles, though there are days he wishes Ianto would dress in the way he does on those lazy Sunday afternoons. Ianto rolls his eyes and tells him to get out of bed, that Ianto will make the coffee while he gets dressed. And Jack does, he gets up and dresses and finds Ianto in the kitchen, making toast and coffee and fussing about the fact that he didn’t polish his shoes yesterday. Jack takes his hands firmly in his and pulls him away from the kitchen, just for a minute. They stand by the window in the living room and Ianto looks at Jack bemused as he points out a group of teenagers shoving each other as they walk to school and the students leaning against the bus shelter with their eyes half closed, cursing the daylight.

Jack smiles at Ianto and tells him to stay young, reminds him that ten years ago he was one of those teenagers, making his way to school reluctantly. He reminds Ianto that it was less than five years ago that he himself was a hung-over student. He kisses him again, firm and insistent, and makes him promise he won’t forget to be young once in a while.

Ianto promises and Jack feels a little like he’s just been indulged. Ianto moves back to the kitchen, preparing breakfast and Jack thinks he should probably be rolling his own eyes at how quickly Ianto’s returned to being a mature adult. But then he sips his coffee and tastes salt on his lips and looks up to see Ianto attempting to look innocent while smirking behind his own mug and he smiles, because he knows that Ianto Jones is twenty five years old and he hasn’t forgotten, not yet.


End file.
